


Inevitably, like a car crash,

by unleaved



Series: all the right wrongs [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:49:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23595622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unleaved/pseuds/unleaved
Summary: —you can't look away. This is a cautionary tale; you don't fuck with death, even if death fucked you over first.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: all the right wrongs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698547
Comments: 21
Kudos: 97





	Inevitably, like a car crash,

**Author's Note:**

> **content warnings:** major character death, suicide ideation, canon-typical violence, parent/child abuse. please proceed with caution if any of these things upset you.

` -7,56 hours; ~~dead~~ `

Neil’s holding Andrew’s hand when it comes, silently, cutting through the air.

They’re in a hospital room, Andrew in the bed and Neil sitting on a chair by his side. It’s just a precaution, the nurse assures them, almost superfluous. The doctor had already ruled out any fractures and internal bleedings, but you never really knew with those pesky concussions, so an overnight stay would be for the best. Better safe than sorry.

When it looks like Kevin’s about to protest, rising from his seat, Neil turns to look at him until he’s seated again, hanging his head. Everyone else is silent, quietly watching Neil from the corner of their eyes as they turn their heads away. He doesn’t know how he looks, but Neil knows he feels like an autumn leaf that is going to fall to the ground at the first mention of a gust and crumble on impact. The way Andrew had hit the ground had left him shaken, unable to move from his spot near the other team’s goal. The scene keeps replaying behind his eyelids, every time he blinks. The way Andrew had first hit the wall. The way his body had slumped over to fall on the floor next. The way the collective gasp from the spectators had left the court quiet enough for Neil, who was standing on the other side of the court, to hear the sharp crack as Andrew’s head hit the floor. 

The way the helmet had flown off.

 _No_ , Neil had thought. _No, I would’ve_ _known._

Even now, with Andrew warm and breathing right beside him, so close he could lean a little forward and his shoulder would connect with Andrew’s, even then. Even then, a part of Neil had been abandoned on that court, forced to relive that moment on autoplay and feeling so far away even when Andrew was right there.

A steady hand appears in his vision and Neil looks up. It’s Andrew’s hand, and Neil just can’t understand why it’s so steady when his own have a slight tremor in them. Answering the question in Andrew’s face, Neil says, “Yes,” and Andrew grips his right wrist gently, turning the hand between his own.

“Why is your pulse beating so fast?” Andrew says, his voice low so only Neil catches the words. “Didn’t I tell you to stop acting like a rabbit?”

“You,” Neil begins, but Andrew presses his fingers around Neil’s wrist, pressing down the bracelet that’s around it, and Neil looks up at him to meet his eyes and Neil thinks he doesn’t understand it yet, the look in Andrew’s eyes, but he think he might get it a little.

“I’m still here,” Andrew says, “aren’t I?”

Neil nods, twisting his hand around so he’s holding Andrew’s hands. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re here.”

The smell of gasoline hits him first, and for a moment, Neil deludes himself that it’s because of someone in the next room. It’s a hospital. He’s surprised that he hadn’t smelled it earlier. Andrew was already out of danger, the nurse had assured them. The doctor had confirmed. It wasn’t because of Andrew, Neil told himself. But then he catches movement in the corner of his eyes, and he turns.

It comes through the window, unremarkable, silently as it is deadly, flying across the room to Neil and Andrew by cutting through the air. With a flutter, it sits on their clasped hands.

A purple butterfly.

` -17,06 hours; ~~dead~~ `

Neil’s been trying to find Matt ever since that moment in the hospital room, when the scent of death had tainted Andrew’s skin and Neil had clutched his hand so hard it almost bruised, but it’s not before Neil least expects it that he comes across Matt.

“Neil?” Dan asks from behind him. “Are you going through the door, or..?”

“Oh,” Neil says. “Yeah, uh. Sure.” He steps aside to let Dan through the door. “Go on ahead. I’m just going to make a phone call.”

If it had been any other time, Dan would’ve looked questioning at him, demanding answers because even Neil hears how flimsy his excuse is. When you’ve been forced to sit through a meeting that didn’t last less than three hours, to kiss ass with old white men who’d never held a racquet but somehow still held enough power that their opinions and good humor still mattered, Neil couldn’t imagine anyone actually wanting to stay in that same meeting room for a second longer after the meeting was done. He hadn’t wanted to go, but his team’s coach had said one word, _sponsors_ , and if you’ve lived enough in any kind of sports world, you would know that the word of sponsors? Mattered. His thoughts had been too occupied around Andrew to remember that these meeting required all captains and vice-captains of every exy team in the region to show up and shut up, and so, when he came into the room and saw Dan sitting by the table, giving him a smile and a small wave, he realized that he’d meet Matt sooner rather than later.

Because wherever Dan was, Matt would always be nearby.

And he is. When Neil opens the door to go out from the meeting, his feet restless and his mind even more scattered, he sees Matt on the other side, looking like he was waiting. 

“Okay,” Dan says to Neil’s statement, dragging out the vowels. She looks split, like she wants to dig more but would rather leave as soon as possible, which Neil can’t blame her. “Sounds like an extremely important phone call. You sure you all right?”

Neil says, “I’m fine.”

“Shut up,” Dan and Matt says at the same time.

“But seriously,” Dan says, “you need anything, you find me, okay? And tell Andrew I send him my best wishes. He better be allowed to play when we come to beat your asses.”

It’s thin and it’s weary, but for a second Neil feels his lips tug up in a smile, a second he actually have felt somewhat good in the last couple of days. “I’ll tell him.”

Dan looks at him a second too long, pursing her lips as if she’s considering saying something else, but then she finally settles on a clap to his shoulder and a “see you later, dude.”

She turns around and goes right past Matt, who follows her with his gaze until she’s disappeared around the corner. Then he looks up at Neil, his expression somber. “I heard you were looking for me?”

Neil beckons for Matt to come inside the now empty meeting room. It’s just too risky to let somebody in this building come across him when talking to Matt. Having not the best reputation around, it wouldn’t help Neil’s case if he were caught talking to air.

“Matt,” Neil says as soon as he closes the door with a kick and a solid thud. “You need to tell me it’s a lie, or a mistake, or, or something. I saw a butterfly on Andrew yesterday, and you need to tell me it was a real goddamn butterfly or something, because he _just_ survived one of the hardest hits I’ve ever seen him take. So that can’t be right, right? He’s not about to die, right? Right?”

Matt isn’t meeting Neil’s eyes, chewing on his lips, and kicking imaginary stones on the shining floor, while Neil feels that same floor fall away under his feet. “ _Right?_ ”

“There was,” Matt says, “there was actually a mistake, but it’s not what you think. Neil, it’s—”

“He’s overdue,” another voice cuts in.

Neil whirls around to the source of the voice. “Who the fuck are you?”

Another person is suddenly standing in the room, clad in black and lips as red as blood. Neil squints at them. Their face is blurry and constantly changing, but the lips stay the same, forming a twisted smirk, and very red. So red it looks like they’re about to drip.

“This is Lola,” Matt says. “She’s my superior.”

“Your superior?” Neil says, throwing a glance at Matt but not daring to turn away from the stranger. “The fuck? Is death a bureaucracy too?”

Lola smiles sugary, the corner of her eyes crinkling, like a rotten apple. “Oh, dear Nathaniel, don’t you know? Everything’s a bureaucracy if you think hard enough about it. There’s always a hierarchy. There’s always a higher purpose. There’s always something bigger than ourselves that we all try to serve.”

Nails digging furrows into his palms, Neil barely stops himself from smashing into something with his bare hands, preferably into Lola’s face. Her smile annoys him. Her eyes scare him. She makes something deep inside want to recoil away, his skin crawling under her gaze. He forces himself to be completely motionless in his face when he turns around to show his back to Lola, making a point. Through clenched teeth, he says to Matt, “What do you mean by that? That he’s overdue?”

Matt blinks slowly, the corner of his mouth turning downwards. He opens his mouth, presumably to answer, but before he can make a sound, Lola appears beside him. 

“Andrew Minyard,” she says, “born the 4th of november 1996 to Tilda Minyard, neé Kim, and Benjamin Minyard, was supposed to die seventeen hours ago.”

Neil shakes his head before she comes to the end of her sentence. “No,” he says, his voice surprisingly steady. “That can’t be right. He’s alive and well. I just saw him. He’s breathing just fine. In fact, he’s in a perfect shape. No fractures. No—nothing.”

“Neil,” Matt says, reaching towards him, but stopping short just above his shoulder, a sad and flimsy try at comfort. “I wanted to tell you, but duty—”

“I thought you guys couldn’t lie,” Neil says, somehow out of breath without a moving muscle. “Then, why are you lying to me?”

“You need to slow down, Neil,” Matt says and he sounds scared.

“I don’t need to do anything,” Neil says through gritted teeth and he doesn’t feel anything, not a single thing, it barely even registers in his mind, when Matt flinches back at his voice, holding his hands up as if Neil just brought up a gun to his head. “I don’t need to listen to anything you tell me.”

“Please,” Matt says, his voice pitched low and insistent, but Neil can’t see his face suddenly because he’s on his knees, looking at the floor that still, somehow, is underneath him. “Neil, you’re hyperventilating.”

A pair of black sharp heels appear before Neil. “I think,” Lola says slowly, taking the time to enunciate her words, and crouches down to meet Neil’s eyes, “you want to listen to this.”

“No,” Neil spits out as his sight darkens at the corner. He blinks, but it just make fireworks play in his vision. “Fuck off.”

“No?” Lola says and tilts her head. “So you don’t want to save your dearest Andrew?”

“Wait.”

There’s nothing but darkness in Neil’s eyes, but he can still see the whites of Lola’s eyes turning into half moons, as if she just heard the most hilarious joke but is politely trying not to laugh at the wake of a walking dead man.

“How?” Neil whispers.

“Let’s make a deal.”

` 1,14 hours; ~~dead~~ `

“Cocking shit of a fuckhole,” Kevin growls under his breath, as the plush toy fell from the claw for the umptenth time, far short from its intended destination. “Motherfucking piece of rancid—”

“Lol,” Nicky says from his place leaning against the toy claw machine, slurping loudly on a plastic cup of pink and blue slush. “Kevin, there are children around.”

It’s been a week since Neil met Lola and found out Andrew was supposed to have died. Andrew had been forced to repercute at home by Coach, and Neil had watched over him, fussing until Andrew snapped at him to chill. When Allison had called to remind them they had a gathering this weekend at the local amusement park, Andrew had looked at Neil daring him to say no; that was how restless Andrew had become to get out.

All the rides were free with the tickets they had bought, but despite that, Neil finds himself and the others in the gaming arcade only an hour after they get there. The arcade where you had to pay to play. Thea makes an offhand comment about one of the bear prizes being cute before taking Dan in hand and dragging her with her to go on some kind of rollercoaster, which explains Kevin’s current quest to conquer the claw machine and get one. Allison and Katelyn takes the opportunity to find a Dance Dance Revolution and completely dominate it, while Aaron looks on by the side. Renee goes with Andrew to buy what is probably every sweet they sell in this place, Neil yelling after them to get him something too.

Coming back from the kiosk and handing Neil a bag of popcorn, Andrew catches Nicky’s words and says, “You saying the word ‘lol’ out loud is going to scar them way more than any cursing could. It’s not like kids don’t hear their parents cuss when they accidentally slam their toes into a table leg.”

“El ehm ay oh,” Nicky says and tilts his head to blink at Andrew over the edge of his sunshades, clearly feeling fearless these days. “Andrew just made a funny.”

Leaning on the other side of the machine, Andrew is carefully unfurling the wrapping of a lollipop while watching Kevin’s struggle with the controls. “Nicky?”

“Yeah?” Nicky says distracted, back to focusing on the claw as Kevin slowly, oh so slowly, positions the claw to the left, right over the big brown bear—

“You know that the pink color from the stuff you’re drinking comes from scale insects, right?”

“And it tastes absolutely fantastic!” Nicky takes a sip, slurping purposely loud, and smacks his lips. “Sorry, you’ve already used that one on me.”

Beside him, the claw machine plays a little sad melody as the claw lets go of its prize, once again.

“Ah,” Andrew says, “the song of Kevin’s life.”

“Fucking shithole of dickbags! This fakeass game can fuck off, what the fuck!”

A passing mother throws a scandalized look at Kevin, taking her two kids roughly by hand to hurry off in the other direction. Nicky guffaws, sloshing blue and pink ice all over himself, and immediately jumps up with a yell at the cold. Andrew doesn’t smile exactly, but he shifts the lollipop from one cheek to the other. Neil opens the bag of popcorn, trying to drag his attention from the distracting sight that is Andrew’s face, only to take a handful of popcorn and almost spit it right back out.

“What,” Neil says, licking his lips. “These aren’t salty. They’re sugary.”

Andrew’s gaze slides over to him. When he speaks up, the lollipop clanks against his teeth, clearly audible even through all the chatter surrounding them. “The best kind.”

“This is why you don’t ask Andrew to pick up the snacks, Neil,” Nicky says, balling up the napkin he used to clean himself up. “Three years and you’d think he’d pick up on this stuff.”

“Three years and a half,” Andrew says.

“What?” Nicky says, raising an eyebrow at Andrew. Neil can’t see the gleam in Nicky’s eyes because of the shades, but he can hear the equivalent glee in his voice.

Andrew sighs. He’s probably realized the mistake he’s done, but he only shifts a little on his feet, takes the red lollipop out and says, “I said, we’ve been together for more than three years.” His lips are redder than usual, Neil observes. It’s likely from the strawberry flavored lollipops he’s been sucking the whole day.

Nicky grins, but doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he bumps into Neil’s side with his elbow. “Hey, you wanna go back and buy _real_ popcorn? I need to refill my slurpee anyway.” Before even waiting for Neil’s answer, Nicky tilts his head to Andrew, says, “You. Stay behind and make sure Kevin doesn’t get kicked out trying to win a prize for Thea.” He turns around to Kevin. “Yo, Kevin, you need anything to supply you in your fight?”

“Shut up, Nicky,” Kevin says, giving the machine a kick instead of turning around. “This shit’s totally rigged! It’s rigged! A child’s supposed to get it, how can’t I—?”

“Oki doki,” Nicky says. “Neil, we’re leaving the idiots.”

Following Nicky out of the arcade, Neil looks over his shoulder to mouth ‘idiot’ at Andrew. In retaliation, Andrew opens his mouth to show off the lollipop in his mouth before he clamps on it with his teeth, crushing it and chewing on the sugar chumps. Neil winces and runs to catch up with Nicky.

“So,” Nicky begins when they stand at the end of the long queue. “You getting excited yet for the big move?”

Neil snorts and squints, raising an arm to shield his eyes from the sun. “You separated us from Andrew and Kevin to ask me this? It’s not like Andrew isn’t spending most nights at my place already or anything.”

“Oh, hush you,” Nicky says and kicks Neil lightly at the shin. “It’s soon to be official and stuff, though. But what am I saying? I always knew you were official when Andrew gave you a matching bracelet. That was like putting a ring on it.”

At the mention of the bracelet, Neil tugs the end of his sweater more over his hands. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Nicky, who only smiles softly. “Hey, no, it wasn’t meant to make you feel bad about not wearing it right now. Who wear something precious like that to an amusement park anyway? You might lose it.” Nicky shakes his head. “I just wanted to say, I’m happy you’re the one he gave his heart to.”

Neil smiles but it feels shy on his face. He ducks his face to hide it. He _feels_ shy. And happy. And the happiness is bubbling and simmering in him all the while the line becomes shorter, all the way back to Andrew again, like a laugh caught in his ribcage, warming his body. They end up being thrown out from the arcade, not because of Kevin, but because Nicky gave himself brain freeze and started cursing in front of passing security, but that doesn’t tamper down the happiness. If anything, it just become bigger when they meet up with the rest of the group. Even Allison’s somewhat antagonistic suggestion, or dare, for Andrew to take one of the rollercoasters when she knows he has a fear for heights, doesn’t distinguish the happiness completely.

Because Nicky’s words gave voice to a slew of doubts that Neil has nearly forgotten about and completely knocked them out with a single sentence, ripping away any lingering poison. It’s not—Neil doesn’t have any doubts about what he is to Andrew, and certainly no doubts about what Andrew is to Neil. It’s just—No one took them seriously. Two wrongs don’t make a right and two broken boys don’t make a life together. The math didn’t add up. It felt like no one took them seriously, so maybe they didn’t take themselves seriously either; lingering residue from the beginning of their relationship when they openly built it on false hope and pinned dreams and wasted potential. That’s not right, that’s not fair either, but when it feels like the world holds its breath every time they touch in public, it really sometimes feel like it’s the last time. Like a temporary daze of sweetness, ready to slip away the next second. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t thought about the future much, before Andrew had mentioned that Aaron was going to move in with Kathlyn and Nicky were planning on moving to Germany, and everything just fell into place.

If nothing at all makes sense, at least this equation does: At the dare, Andrew slips Neil’s hand in his and walks off to the nearest rollercoaster. Neil’s only got two hands, but between them they have four, two to hold onto each other and the other to hold onto the ride called life, and Neil knows he won’t be the first to let go of the warm hand grasping his. Not in this lifetime.

In front of the rollercoaster, Neil stops abruptly, forcing Andrew to stop as well or separate himself from Neil. Andrew stills, looking back at Neil. They’re not visible to the rest of the group anymore, so Neil takes the moment to say, “You don’t have to do it. I’ll be there if you’re going to do it regardless, but I’m telling you now that you don’t have to do anything Allison suggests to prove something.”

Andrew visibly falters at this, looking between Neil and the line for the rollercoaster ride in front of them several times. Then he says, “What do you suggest we do then?”

Neil hums and takes a step closer to Andrew. “I can think of a few things.”

“Yeah?”

Neil takes a deep breath himself and that’s when he catches it. The unmistakable tinge of gasoline.

He looks up in shock and over Andrew’s shoulder, Neil sees two figures arguing in the middle of the crowd, not giving any notice to the people milling around them. More importantly, no one else seem to be acknowledging them. When they shift, looking like they’re about to throw punches, Neil can see the profile of the tall one and recognizes them immediately.

It’s Matt.

“Neil,” Andrew says, “where did you go?”

Neil turns to see Andrew frowning at him. A purple butterfly flies around his head.

Tugging Andrew along, Neil walks off in the opposite direction of the sport where Matt and the other death angel stood.

Later, the amusement park announces through crackling speakers that the rollercoaster that Andrew and Neil was about to take is closing due to an incident with complications. No dead, but one injured.

There goes Neil’s happiness, popped like a balloon, not with a nail, but with a chainsaw.

` -4,86 hours; ~~dead~~ `

This time, Matt seeks out Neil first. Bags in both hands, Neil asks Andrew to grab the key in his pocket and unlock the door, and when it swings open, it reveals Matt’s distressed face. He steps aside as Andrew walks through the hallway.

“Did you know that Renee’s cat died?” Andrew says, walking into the living room and taking off his jacket to throw it over the back of the couch. Taking the remote in hand, he lies down on the couch, stretching so there’s no free space. They have a small couch. Neil sits on the armrest instead, glancing at Matt, trying to communicate that they’ll talk later, in the kitchen, within that single glance. Matt nods, and in between a blink, he’s gone.

Andrew’s fiddling with the buttons on the remote, switching through the channels and looking at the screen but not really watching. Neil remembers to the evening, remembers Renee smiling dimly at him, but not much else. She faded in the background, mostly looking at the ground whenever he caught sight of her. He can’t recall hearing her voice. If he paid attention, he wonders if he would’ve smelled gasoline on her fingertips.

“No,” Neil says to Andrew’s question. “But I noticed she was quieter than usual.”

Andrew hums. “She’s really sad about it. She said Stephanie had the cat for twelve years, and they both had become really attached to her. The cat. Name’s Fanta.” Andrew snorts. “‘Cause it was orange, apparently.”

Letting his arm hold the remote fall, Andrew goes silent and Neil has a dawning realization of what’s happening when he sees what channel Andrew put on.

It’s the news. The news talking about a car crash. A motorway accident upending four cars when a truck suddenly swerved lanes. The traffic had been at a total stand-still for two hours. There was currently three dead and eight in serious critica—

Neil takes the remote gently from Andrew’s hand and quickly switches the channel to a quiz show, some kind of jeopardy; no news, no car crash, nothing that can trigger traumatic memories. But the damage is already done. When Neil takes the remote he can’t help but notice the way Andrew’s hands are shaking. The purple butterflies fly around him, not daring to touch him with how much his body is quivering.

Neil goes on his knees on the floor by the couch to meet Andrew’s eyes. “Is this a no-touch situation?” he asks.

“No,” Andrew says and his voice is surprisingly steady and clear. A contrast to his dead eyes that see right through Neil, something far beyond this realm. Something probably long in the past.

“Can I lie beside you?” Neil asks.

“Yes.”

Neil lies down on the couch beside Andrew. It’s a tight fit, the couch not built in mind to fit two men lying side by side, but it works when both lie on their sides, if barely. In this position, Andrew can’t see the TV anymore, only Neil.

“Want me to take out the casket of pearls?” Neil whispers. “Or we can open the new set of papers you bought. I think those could become pretty birds.”

Andrew shakes his head and his hair tickles Neil’s face. “No,” Andrew says and his eyes slowly focus on Neil’s face. A blink, and finally, Andrew looks into Neil’s eyes. Neil loves Andrew’s eyes, especially when all that brown warmth is directed at him. Yet again he has to question every single person who told themselves and others that Andrew didn’t have a soul, when it’s so clear for Neil to see in his eyes. 

“No,” Andrew says again, and his voice sounds stronger. He brings a fist up between them and uncurls each finger slowly. He holds his flat hand between them until the shaking is almost non-perceptible. “See? Fine.”

“Hey,” Neil says and tilts his head to kiss the palm of Andrew’s hand. “Don’t steal my line.”

Andrew gives a sharp breath through his nose that could almost be mistaken for a laugh. “It’s a shitty line,” Andrew says. “You can have it back.”

They lie there, looking at each other and listening to the TV run mindlessly in the background. After a while, Neil suggests that they move to the bed, careful to remember to leave Andrew the option to pick the guest room if he wants, but Andrew follows him into their bedroom, shimmying out of his pants and kicking them aside before falling onto the blankets. 

“I was thinking about Fanta,” Andrew says, muffled against the pillows. “Renee really misses her. She said she’d do anything to have a few more moments with her. I was thinking that I’ve never really thought that way before.”

“About?” Neil says, laying down and turning his body towards Andrew. This track of thoughts is getting dangerously close to Neil’s own issue, Neil thinks, as he watches the butterfly over Andrew’s head. He reaches out, tired of seeing them and wanting to catch one and crush it with his bare hand. Maybe then this will nightmare end. Maybe if he wills it away. Maybe if he smothers it with the pillow. Maybe if he prays to a god, or God, or whoever makes the butterflies, or whoever makes humans fit each other so well only to rip them apart as soon as they find each other. But his hands close around air—the butterfly slipping right between his finger—because prayers are never enough. God always want a sacrifice in blood, in Neil’s experience.

At the motion, Andrew shifts, turning his head to look up at the ceiling, oblivious to Neil’s inner turmoil.

“I’ve never thought I wanted to have any more moments with any dead people I knew.”

Neil blinks. “Oh?” he says faintly.

“Mhm,” Andrew says, and they’re both thinking that the other is thinking the same as them. That none of the dead people in Andrew’s life deserved to live anymore either way.

“Can I do anything?” Neil says.

“About?” Andrew says, raising his brows.

“For you,” Neil corrects. “Can I do anything for you?”

Andrew looks at him silently, looking like he’s not breathing. Then he closes his eyes and all the tension bleeds out of him with his exhale. “Just stay,” Andrew says, fumbling forward with his hand. Neil takes it and tangles their fingers together. “Just promise you’ll stay so I’ll never wonder.”

The butterflies caresses Neil’s cheeks and hands and Neil wants to scream. Wants to say that it’s Andrew who can’t seem to stop leaving him when Neil is trying his hardest to keep him by his side. 

“Always,” Neil says instead. And he does stay. He stays till he’s sure Andrew’s fallen asleep and some time after that too, just watching Andrew’s face and reaching forward to touch and smooth out the furrow between his brows, before he slips out of bed and pads out to the kitchen, careful to close the door behind.

“Well,” Lola says. “That took more time than I calculated. Usually whispering sweet nothings don’t take this long. Leave it at ‘love you’ and ‘sweet dreams’ next time. I’m a busy woman. I can’t wait for forever.”

Neil bites his tongue on a _fuck off_ , clenches his jaw on a _then leave_ , and swallows down _I never asked for this_. Because the fact is that he needed Lola and however much Lola crowed over him with that same fact, he needed her on his side. Andrew would be proud if he knew there were still some shit Neil could swallow and not spit.

“Why?” Neil says only, looking at Matt, who’s leaning against the kitchen counter. Neil figures if there’s anyone who’s going to give him a straight answer, it’s Matt.

Matt shrugs, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “I swear, the bracelet did give him time.”

“But judging by your surly face right now,” Lola says, “I don’t think it was what you had in mind.”

“No,” Neil says, slamming his hand into the kitchen table. The vase of flowers Andrew got from a fan tips over and rolls down the edge to be crushed into a million pieces. “You promised me life. Not _seven fucking days_.”

Matt winces, but Lola only smiles crookedly. “Watch your flowers. You should be more careful with life, you know.”

Neil narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lola sighs, clicking her tongue. “It means what it means. Life is sacred. You think something material and as easily broken as a homemade bracelet is worth any more than a week? Seven days more is already a miracle. Clearly you had to give me something of more worth.”

“But,” Neil says, “it was the most valuable I had. Andrew gave it to me. It was the first he made. You told me you would give me the equivalent amount of time to the value of whatever I gave you in exchange. I don’t have anything more valuable than that.”

“Well, this,” Lola says and swirls a finger around the room as if to encompass ‘this’, “goes to show it wasn’t really that valuable, huh?”

A cough captures Neil and Lola’s attention and forces them to break their staring contest to look at Matt, who’s openly glaring at Lola. “It was unfair of you to not clear up the rules with Neil before making a deal like that. You made an illegal deal on shaky grounds.”

Lola straightens her back and rolls her eyes. “Oh, Matthew, dear Matty, are we really going down this route? Need I remind you that we’re standing in the same flat as someone that we’re _legally_ bound to reap? He’s overdue again. And don’t take me for a fool. I know you were involved.”

Neil blinks and Matt pales. 

“Just,” Matt says and shakes his head as if he can’t believe himself for talking. “Just, give him another deal. This time he knows he can give something that’s not material.”

Going to stand beside Matt is a flimsy attempt at gratitude, but Neil has nothing else—nothing at all it seems—so it will have to do. By the way Matt nods at Neil, the intent is understood, and the way Matt inches closer makes Neil think the support might go both ways. It makes him feel a little better.

“You heard him, Nathaniel,” Lola says. “Something other than a love bracelet, or engagement ring, or family picture, or favorite racquet.”

“Don’t call me Nathaniel,” Neil grits out.

Lola only raises her eyebrows.

“Such as?” Neil says.

“A memory,” Lola says.

“Take it,” Neil says immediately.

Lola laughs. “Hey, tough guy, might want to think a little more about it. Choose something that’s worth it so much that you’ll nearly hesitate because it will hurt that much to part with it.” She steps closer, crunching the glass pieces under her heels, and leans over the table to shove a hand in Neil’s face, rubbing her thumb against her fingers in the universal sign known as ‘money’. “Value.”

Matt and Neil goes to lock themselves in the bathroom. Sitting in the empty bathtub with Matt close by, it takes Neil nearly two hours to choose something, but when he does, he sits there for another hour just to be sure. The hands on the clock hanging on the kitchen wall shows it’s half past three in the morning when they come back. Lola is sitting on the counter, flower petals and withering yellow stems around her. There’s no flowers near the broken pieces that earlier made the vase.

When Neil tells her the offer, he does so with closed eyes. He opens them to see Lola scrutinizing him with completely black eyes.

“I’ve been thinking and I’m only trying to clear up something,” Lola says and this is the first time Neil has seen her without a smile. “I’ve met very few humans who can see us, and even fewer willing to deal with us. Just who are you, Nathaniel Wesninski?”

Neil bares his teeth in a parody of a smile. “Neil Abram Josten.”

They make their second deal.

` 0,98 hours; ~~dead~~ `

Fifteen days later, Andrew opens the fridge to take the milk and drink directly from the carton, only to find it completely empty. Neil witnesses this from his place at the kitchen table, just about to bite into his sandwich, when he sees Andrew’s expression.

Neil gulps down the cheese and bread. “I forgot.”

Andrew’s expression doesn’t change.

“You’re the only one beside the cats that drink milk,” Neil says. “Technically, you should be responsible for the milk.”

The twitch in Andrew’s lips is the only indication that he heard Neil, and he is not impressed. Neil sighs, putting down the rest of his sandwich and rising up to push back his chair. “I’ll buy the groceries.” 

“I’ll come with,” Andrew says, turning around and walking out to the hallway to find his shoes. “You never buy the right kind, and I’m done with being holed up here. I’m fine, I was fine a week ago, I’m fine right now.”

Neil follows. “You know the coach just wants to use you as an excuse to let us all rest up,” Neil says, tying his shoes. “The day you—I mean, your accident, that same day we crushed our biggest competition. And we won yet again this time, even if you couldn’t play. Let’s have a week for ourselves.”

Rising up and pulling on his jacket, Neil sees Andrew leaning against the doorway. He catches Andrew’s eyes and Andrew opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes past his lips, ending with them just looking at each other for several moments. Eventually, he says, “I would like you to say that around Dan so I can see her whack you for implying that her team isn’t the biggest competition around.”

“Aww,” Neil says, walking up to Andrew so that they stand chest to chest, toe to toe. Reaching towards the wall behind him to the hook holding up the car keys brings Neil even closer, but Andrew doesn’t move away and Neil acts like he doesn’t feel Andrew’s gaze searing his skin. “You wouldn’t miss me?”

Andrew snorts, and his breath hits Neil’s chin. “She’d do me a favor.”

“Just for that,” Neil says and dangles the keys in front of Andrew’s face, “you have to drive.”

With a raised eyebrow, Andrew takes the keys, fingers brushing against Neil’s. “Neil. You don’t have a licence yet.”

“Ops,” Neil says, moving backwards towards the door. “Come on.”

They walk out to the parking lot in front of the apartment complex, Andrew ridiculing Neil for not having his driver's license yet despite knowing how to drive for ages, and if he doesn’t want to fix his legal stuff, then well it’s his funeral when he gets caught and Andrew won’t be there to bail him out. 

Opting to wake up late since sleeping in is what all normal adults do when they have vacation time, it’s not really morning still, but that time of the day where the morning rush has died down and everyone’s off the streets and in front of their school benches or work desks, leaving the outdoors strangely quiet. Slamming the car door shut makes a strange echoing sound, and Neil feels weirdly strange-footed. But then again, he’s been strange-footed for the past six days.

“Neil,” Andrew says like it’s not the first time he’s said it, dragging Neil back to reality and making him turn away from the window to look at Andrew.

“Yeah?”

Andrew doesn’t speak for a second as he turns the car around a corner. “I said,” he says, “you’ve been home all this time. Why didn’t you get the groceries earlier?”

Because he’s too occupied by Andrew’s face, trying to memorise every line and soft edge to memory. Because he’s too busy touching him and reassuring himself that Andrew’s right there, alive and breathing, breathing, alive. Because it feels like drowning, this uncertainty and fear of Andrew being out of danger choking him, and making Neil unable to do anything but clench to the man beside him.

When the seven-day-mark passed, Neil felt like he could breathe again, if only marginally. As the days passed farther and farther from that mark, it became better. He became better.

Andrew’s alive and breathing right beside him after all.

“I told you,” Neil says. “I forgot.”

_I didn’t want to leave you out of my sight._

Andrew hums.

“What does it even matter?” Neil mutters. “It was just the milk that ran out. It’s not like you’re going to get taller.”

Andrew parks the car with a jolt and looks over at Neil. “Listen to the health freak. Did your mother never tell you that milk strengthens your bones?”

It’s a clear opening, an open invitation to get a jab back at Andrew—about how Neil wasn’t the health freak in Andrew’s life, that title were proudly adorned by Kevin, thank you very much—but Neil opens his mouth and the only thing that comes past his lips is a pained sound, a broken sob. He hurries to turn his head away, wiping at the non-existent wetness his cheeks with the sleeve of his jacket, feeling the rough material chafe against his skin. 

“Neil,” Andrew says. “What just happened?”

“Nothing,” Neil breathes, but it doesn’t sound the least bit convincing, not even to Neil’s ears, with the way his breath keeps catching. “Nothing. Just… it’s stupid.”

“Clearly not,” Andrew says. “Not if it makes you like this.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Uh huh,” Andrew says, and then they fall silent, both watching the people passing by the parking lot to get to the shop. After a couple of minutes, Neil surprises himself by breaking the silence first.

“I can’t remember my mother’s face.”

Neil is looking out the side window but he can feel Andrew’s heavy gaze on him, and Neil says, “Told you it was stupid.”

“Shut up,” Andrew says, and Neil feels the slightest touch on the back of his hand. Neil turns the hand around so that his palm faces up, and then he feels a hand sliding down his wrist and tangling their fingers together. “Everyone knows you’re stupid,” Andrew says and gives his hand a squeeze, “but this is not stupid.”

Neil breathes something resembling a laugh, his cheeks dry because all the water has moved to his mouth, making the laugh wet instead. He swallows to clear his throat and squeezes Andrew’s hand back before turning towards him. Andrew’s not looking at him, but at the their intertwined hands, his expression carefully blank when he raises his gaze to meet Neil’s.

“It’s not stupid.”

Neil sniffs, chuckling to himself. “You wouldn’t know the scope of it,” he says and turns his aching eyes away, but Andrew squeezes his hand again and says, “Don’t look away.”

“Tell me,” Andrew says when Neil looks back at him. “Tell me why it’s stupid then.”

Without breaking Andrew’s gaze, Neil tilts his head towards the supermarket in front of their car.

Andrew’s gaze flickers in the same direction. He snorts. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had plans after this. What is it? A new season of _Cutthroat Kitchen_? _America’s Next Top Model_?”

Neil blinks. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I switched channels to watch _Masterchef_ last night.”

Andrew bends down under the wheel to reach to his feet. While Neil watches dumbfounded, Andrew unties his shoelaces with one hand, saying, “That’s because I was using your thigh as a pillow.” Taking off his shoes, he sits up to cross his feat in the seat and turns to face Neil, using Neil’s hand to tug himself in position. “I didn’t think I had any right to complain, but then again, you like _Masterchef_ , so maybe I should—”

“What are you doing,” Neil says.

Andrew makes a show of leaning back and melting against the car door, but Neil knows he can’t be be comfortable with the way the car door handle must be digging into his back and the way his neck is bent with his head pressed against the window. “Making myself comfortable,” Andrew says and Neil scoffs. Still holding onto Neil’s hand, Andrew flaps his other one, indicating Neil’s other hand. Giving Andrew his other hand forces Neil to sit like Andrew, so he takes off his own shoes and faces him. Holding both hands, Andrew squeezes and says, “I’m ready to be entertained. I’ll give you a rating from one to ten on how stupid your stupid thing is. You better make it good.”

Neil swallows against the sudden tidal waves of awe and warmth that wells up at the sight of the man in front of him, who’s still a little bit rough and clumsy and sometimes even mean, but who is still willing to be the steady pillar for Neil to lean on, ever since Neil was nineteen years old and lost and about to die. The echo of memories chokes Neil and he clenches Andrew’s hands, looking down at them, not knowing how to find the words to say that he wasn’t able to sleep the last few days, in fear that Andrew would disappear as soon as he closed his eyes. That Andrew was for real about to die right in front of Neil, and how Neil couldn’t do anything about it but trade his dearest memory, because he didn’t have anything else more meaningful in his life than that and the man in front of him. That he didn’t understand why the loss of this particular memory is hitting him so much. He didn’t even cry when his mother died.

Knowing with certainty that Andrew would go with it and pretend like nothing ever happened if Neil said to forget it, is perhaps exactly what makes him force his mouth open and give life to the words. Neil looks down at their hands, sliding them against each other so that he can thumb the bracelet around Andrew’s wrist.

“I can’t remember my mother’s face,” Neil says, not looking up, “so I can’t remember which parts of my face isn’t made up of him.”

He hears Andrew taking in a sharp breath so he looks up. Andrew is frowning. Neil says, “Told you it was stupid.”

“You keep using that word,” Andrew says. “I don’t think you know what it means.” He shifts so he’s on his knees, leaning over the gearstick and letting go of Neil’s hands. With his hands free, he supports himself with a hand on the back of Neil’s seat while he uses the other to cup Neil’s face, making Neil look directly into his eyes.

“It’s a one,” Andrew says, “or a very, very weak two. Didn’t entertain me the least. Look,” he continues, “you told me once that you got your dark skin from your mother. That’s one thing. And these ears?” Andrew glides his hand up to Neil’s ear to give it a gentle tug. “They stick out too much to belong to a butcher. And these scars?” Andrew’s fingers brush lightly, so lightly, over the scars, making tingles run down Neil’s back. “Solely yours. These eyes? Neil’s. These brows? Neil’s. These lips? It’s just Neil Josten. No one else.” Andrew’s voice becomes lower and lower until it falls to a soft whisper. “And I completely, absolutely hate it.”

Neil bites the inside of his cheek, trying not to smile too wide. He turns his head to brush his lips along the palm of Andrew’s hand that is cradling his cheek. “You keep using that word,” Neil whispers, watching Andrew’s eyes darken. “I don’t think you know what it—”

A piercing scream interrupts Neil, the kind of scream that cuts to the bone and feels like cold icing on your teeth. Neil and Andrew look at each other, both frozen for a moment, before throwing themselves back in motion again, stepping into their shoes without tying them properly, and hurling out of their respective doors. But the air greeting Neil when he opens the door make him almost bend over and retch a little in his mouth.

It’s dense with the smell of death and gasoline.

Andrew’s already a few paces in front of him, running around the corner towards the main entrance before Neil picks up his own pace and runs after him. He doesn’t need to worry though, because when he turns around the corner, he nearly bumps into Andrew, who’s standing still. Neil steps aside to stand beside Andrew, and in doing so, Neil sees the crowd gathered in front of them. There are children crying and distressed muttering and cries to call an ambulance and in the middle of it all a woman who’s screaming, “my child! That’s my _daughter!_ ” Neil doesn’t want to get closer, doesn’t want to see what he thinks is under the pile of beams the crowd is surrounding. It’s clear what’s happened, the construction site over the road and the huge crane over their heads and mutterings of “a terrible accident”. Instead, Neil looks up at the crane over them, and in his peripheral sight he catches sight of a familiar face peeking from the edge of the building on the opposite side of the road.

It’s Matt. Matt staring back at Neil with shock written all over his face. He’s mouthing something at Neil, but the only thing Neil register is the blood rushing in his ears. Without thinking, he reaches towards Andrew by his side, fumbling to take his hand. When his hand only connects to air, he turns his gaze around as well but stops dead at what he sees.

“What?” Andrew says.

Half a dozen of purple butterflies sit on Andrew’s shoulders and arms.

` -8,35 hours; ~~dead~~ `

“Matt,” Neil says, sliding down the bathroom door after slamming it closed, his knees giving under him. The only other word he manages to get out is, “How?”

“He’s overdue again,” Matt says and sits down on the floor next to Neil. “I had a bad feeling. And I don’t really trust Lola. I wanted to, so I made myself not say anything. I thought, maybe if I didn’t say anything and just wished for the best, it would come true. And it sort of did? He got more time, but barely. He’s still running out of time.”

Neil sits with his knees pulled up to his chest and his head resting in his arms. “No,” he says muffled against the sweater. “He’s already run out of time, hasn’t he?”

Matt curses under his breath. “I wish I could give you a hug right now.”

Despite the moment, Neil feels like smiling. He doesn’t, but he remembers why Matt is his best friend. “Thanks, guardian angel.”

Matt lets out a breath resembling a little laugh, but he quickly sobers up. “Where’s Andrew?”

“In bed,” Neil says. “Sleeping. I’ve just locked ourselves inside this house and clinged to him the rest of the day. I thought as long as he was with me, there was nothing that could hurt him. I can see any death angels come up and hide him or whatever. But that’s not true either, is it? That he’s safe with me? He could—He could literally die of a heart attack, or, or the roof could suddenly cave in, or—”

“Sssh,” Matt soothes, “sssh.”

“I wouldn’t be able to do ha-anything,” Neil says. “Yuh-you don’t know, Matt. You don’t knuh-know. He told me he wants to live. He wants to _live_ with me. He wuh-wants to live with _me_. And I want to fulfill his wish so bad. I want him to be ha-happy and alive. Is that too much to ask for?”

“No, Neil,” Matt says. “Of course not. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry, Neil. I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

“Call Lola here,” Neil says through the snot and blurred eyes. “Call her, Matt. Leh-let’s make another deal. Third time’s the charm. This one is for good.”

“Insha’Allah.”

`-15,45 hours; ~~dead~~```

Lola is there when he wakes up and she listens to him with a calm face but a wild glint in her eyes that only becomes wilder and wilder as he comes to the end of his proposal of another deal.

“Then,” Lola says, her eyes huge and a splitting smile on her face as she leans closer to Neil’s face. She shouldn’t smell anything but a faint scent of gasoline, as all other death angels Neil has met, but he swears he smells rotten fruit and bad milk when her breath hits his chin. “Give me your dream.”

“My dream?” Neil says, frowning.

“Your dream,” Lola says, still giving him the Chesire smile like he’s Alice and she has seen her salvation. “Simple as that.”

“Neil,” Matt says, but Neil pays him no mind, because Neil is teetering on the edge of sanity, trying to hold onto a life between his teeth before he realized it’s water, continuously escaping him, even with how hard he tries to catch it with his hands, and now his hands are empty but wet, and they won’t be wet of water if he lets Andrew go without even fighting for him.

“And you’ll let him live?” Neil says, ignoring Matt’s pleading eyes and whispers. “For real this time? For a hundred years?”

Lola tilts her head, gazing inwards. “I can’t promise a hundred years, but with your dream? Might be close to that number, yes.”

“Okay,” Neil says, and Matt curses behind him. “Okay, where do I sign?”

“No need to sign anything,” Lola says, leaning backwards, finally giving Neil a chance to breath fresh air again. “We’ll shake on it.”

Neil reaches for her hand without another second thought, because there’s really anything to think about. He’s tried everything else, and a part of him wonders if he should be more surprised at how far he is willing to go, but searching his mind, he finds that it’s not a surprise at all. It’s Andrew. That should be enough.

“Wait a minute,” Matt says, going in front of Neil and effectively cutting him off. “Are you really capable to make a deal like that alone?”

Matt takes on a defensive stand, a boxer’s pose, positioning himself just so he’s protecting Neil’s body from Lola’s sight. Throwing Neil an apologetic glance over his shoulder, Matt goes back to glaring at Lola. 

“Of course I can make the deal,” Lola says. “The question is, is Nathaniel willing to go through with it?”

“What have I got to lose?” Neil says.

Lola’s gaze slides towards the clock hanging at the wall, saying, “I don’t know, but I’d suggest hashing that out sooner rather than later. The hands of time are merciless and wait for no one.”

Neil turns around to look at Matt, not even bothering to move from Lola’s hearing range. “Okay. What have I got to lose?”

Matt frowns. He says, “I don’t know, Neil. I just think this deal might not seem like what she makes it to be.”

“Matt,” Neil says again, slowly. “ _What have I not to lose?_ ”

Matt looks like he’s about to cry which Neil thinks is kind of funny because Neil’s the one who wants to _scream_ at the pain that’s clawing at his head and making everything feel hot and prickly and itchy and stuffy. And Neil has survived torture. He’s survived the hot tip of a cigarette, the sharp edge of a knife, and cold water in his lungs. This still hurts more.

“Okay,” Matt says quietly, his shoulders slumping. Defeated. “Okay, Neil.”

“Tick tock,” Lola says.

Neil strides over, reaches out to clasp his hand in Lola’s. Despite being prepared for some kind of shock when touching a death angel, it burns like hell and still make him wheeze in pain.

The smile on Lola’s face widens when Neil snaps his hand back, bringing it up to his chest protectively.

“How strange,” Lola says, not sounding surprised at all, but delighted. Happy out of her mind.

“What?” Neil says after a hesitant pause. “Why? What’s strange?”

“Maybe strange is not the word,” Lola says, tilting her head. “But, spectacular? I understand now why Andrew was able to escape death so many times. It was because he was with you.”

Neil frowns, split between chasing his line of questioning and leaving it and Lola alone, just run out of the room without looking back, because the feeling of being a rabbit under her predatory gaze is growing by the second. His feets are moving involuntarily, taking a step back, then two, but he’s too slow and the next thing Lola says makes the blood freeze in his veins.

“Nathaniel,” she says. “Why didn’t you tell me you’ve already died?”

` 42 726 hours; 44 957 hours `

This particular story begins neither strange nor spectacular. It begins with Neil and his mother on the run, because when were they not running? 

Waking up by a slight touch to his shoulder, Neil opens his eyes to see clear blue skies through the car window he’s pressed against and drooling on. His mother tells him that they’re three hours away from the next big city, but that she’s going to stop by a gas station to fill the car and she needs him to watch the car when she goes to pay. She’s in a good mood, the corner of her lips quirked, almost resembling a smile, as she taps something fast and hard on the steering wheel. There’s something of a light hearted, maybe even carefree, atmosphere around her and Neil allows himself to smile, just looking at her.

It should be strange, seeing his mother so light, it really should be, and it is. But she’s been like that for a few days now, since luck just seemed to turn around for them and Neil’s gotten used to it to the point that he doesn’t jump whenever he looks up at his mother’s face to see a smile. To a point where he wants to cling to this, to this very moment, with the radio turned on low on some kind of music channel with soft rock and the wind catching his mother hair through the half-open window by her side which they can’t completely roll all the way up. The smell of exhaust envelopes them and the car jumps whenever his mother goes over a certain mph, not to mention how the car wobbles as if some of the tires are bigger than others. But it’s peaceful. It’s good. Neil will give everything for the straight road in front of them to never end. 

His mother would’ve slapped him if she ever heard him say so. She’d embossed in him to never cling anything, sometimes quite literally, with a hard scowl and harder fists. A hesitant pause, a split moment where he stops to decide what to bring and what to leave behind, can be a moment too long. It’s a trick question, she tells him. There’s nothing to decide between. You cut away your losses. Even your wins. Even if your leg is broken. Even if your arm’s stuck. Cut away your arm and run. 

The unspoken, underlying words were that if his mother ever fell behind, he was to run away, not looking back.

So, Neil basks in the quiet moment, and it makes him careless. When he meets the eyes of a black-suited man through the windshield in the parking lot of the gas station, he’s too slow to register what he’s actually seeing. When he blinks, the man’s already gone. 

His mother comes back a moment later, taking a seat behind the wheel again and saying, “think fast”, throwing something at him. It’s a coke, Neil realizes when he looks down at what he caught with his reflexes. He looks up again to see his mother’s serene expression, and if someone held Neil at gunpoint, maybe he would say that he decided not to say anything at the sight of his mother’s face. But the truth is, he decides when he looks down at the coke between his hands. His mother had told him that they were so close now. So close. They would catch a plane on the coast and leave this soil forever. Soon. Safe. Free.

Maybe it was actually just the simple fact that his mother bought him a coke.

In the grand scheme of things, those technicalities doesn’t matter either way, because it ends in the same way. His father’s men catch up to them with a car chase by the beach. His mother understands quickly that the car she has is no match to theirs, so she swirls the car a complete 180 degrees, drives through them to buy time as the goons use some precious minutes to brake heavily and try to swing around. When his mother understand they won’t be able to outdrive them, they leave the car by the road, his mother grabbing his hand and leading him through the forest on the other side of the road. Because, even though there was a silent agreement between them that Neil would leave his mother if he was forced, there was never uttered a word or given any indication between them that his mother would ever leave Neil.

He wishes that she did. If only she knew that he’s the reason she dies.

They’re told to get in front of them with their hands above their heads when they’re finally surrounded by men in black suits and black guns. His mother stands in front of him, trying to shield him. It’s unnecessary, because Neil feels the cold end of a gun pushed against his back through his thin tee. One of them yells, “Son, catch this.”

Something wet splatters across Neil’s face and chest. At first, Neil thinks the man really threw something at him that Neil didn’t catch properly.

But then he feels his mother’s body slump against him.

That’s the last thing he feels, her tiny body falling against his side, before he hears a loud sound. Though he hears the gunshot, he can’t feel the bullet pierce through his body. This should be the the end of the story. From earth you have come, to earth you become, ash to ash, dust to dust, laid to rest forever and ever, ameen, or something or another. Neil’s not a religious person, does not believe in an afterlife or a higher plane of existence. He believes that someday his body will hit the ground and that’ll be the end. He believes that this is that day. Eternal darkness and nothingness. So long and goodnight. 

But against all beliefs, against all known physical laws and order, he wakes up in the mud, a voice over him sounding distressed and muttering something over and over again.

“A mistake,” the voice says. “A mistake, mistake, what a terrible mistake. You weren’t supposed to die here. How can this happen?”

Coming back alive is painful. It’s dizzying. The pain comes back slowly in stages, making Neil delirious of the agony and the fear that the pain will never stop becoming more intense. He stays there, his mother’s body partially over him, almost as if they’re sleeping normally. As if this is just another night where they didn’t get shelter and they had to share a sleeping bag and tent in the forest again. A mother and her son. But instead of her warm breath across his cheeks, he can only feel the warm blood seeping out of her as he stays motionless, powerless, going cold and dry and sticky. When he finally gains enough strength to try to rise up, he needs to forcefully move his mother’s arm away, the rigor already setting in.

There’s no one there when he moves to stand up. No men in black suits. No butcher. Not even the owner of the distressed voice, which Neil thinks might’ve actually been God. Or maybe Satan. It would’ve been nice to get some kind of explanation, Neil thinks and laughs through the blood in his mouth.

They never talked about it, because contemplating death, or at least voicing the thought, was never an option between them, despite the threat of it constantly and palpably hanging over them. But Neil thinks his mother deserves an acknowledgement of some kind, if he can’t make her a grave. So he drags her body to the car and drives the car back to the beach. Using a can of gasoline they procured from the last gas station, he sets fire to the car with his mother still lying in the backseat, her limbs sticking out in awkward positions. He washes away the blood from his body, finding no wounds or holes that go straight through his body, and changes his clothes as he watches the car burn against the dark night. The smell of gasoline is so strong in his nose, it’s like he put the gasoline can up to his mouth to swallow everything himself. He finds the unopened coke she gave him in his bag, and he uses it to wash his mouth, to spit it out, and spit, spit, spit.

But the smell of gasoline had latched onto his nose and coated the inside of his nostrils and dripped down his lungs and it wouldn’t leave. It never leaves him completely.

` ()system_crash; ()system_crash `

The next day, the day after Neil made what was hopefully his last final deal with Lola and went to bed to curl around Andrew with bones heavy with faceless memories, Neil wakes up to bright light in his eyes. He tries to blink it away, rubbing and rubbing at his eyes, but the spots won’t disappear no matter how much he blinks.

 _Ah,_ Neil thinks.

Neil doesn’t tell Andrew, even though Matt says he should. Andrew is about to move in with him, for Christ’s sake, Neil, he’s bound to find out eventually.

Eventually, Neil says, and leaves it at that.

When he goes to the kitchen to eat breakfast, Andrew’s sitting by the table already, eggs and cereal and sandwiches already ready on the table. 

Neil blinks.

At the table is the same flowers that were torn apart by Lola last night. Neil looks to the table, suddenly remembering he never cleaned that mess up, but there’s nothing. No sign of any broken glass. No sign that there even was anyone there last night. Neil makes a note to thank Matt when he sees him.

Neil goes to practice as usual and it’s okay. It’s fine. He can still move his body just fine, even when he gets tackled with some hard hits at the latest game because he can’t see them coming from the sides anymore. It’s fine, even if it’s tiring to a level Neil never has experienced before when it comes to exy. Exy has always been the light in his otherwise dark life, the one thing he could throw himself into to forget everything else wrong and broken around him. To find himself struggling on the court, the one thing that came easy to him, the only thing that he could find solace in, is not fun, to say the least.

They’re playing against Dan’s team and they just scored a goal, Dan assisting with an incredible pass to one of the strikers across half the court. Neil’s about to turn around to go back to his side of the court, when one of the opposite players slams into him. Hard. So hard the ground punches him three times, and then he’s in the mud again, teeth biting into the dirt. 

Breath knocked out of him, there’s nothing quite like realizing you were just a few moments away from death—it’s just a pure luck of gravity that didn’t make him land on his neck, snapping it clean off—to get the exhaustion in his bones receding instantly, senses brought into sharp intensity, adrenaline pumping his sluggish brain into action. He stands up, ignoring his body’s protests and doesn’t bother picking up his helmet. He sees the ball right in front of him, the other players still frozen in their place, and as far as Neil knows, the judge hasn’t blown the whistle to signal a pause in the game, so Neil picks the ball up with the racquet, and, feeling his heartbeat drumming in his _teeth_ , runs.

He scores.

Coach puts him on bench, says he’ll strap him to it if he doesn’t sit still to let the medicals do their job and check him over. One of them puts a light to his eye, checking for a concussion probably, and Neil has a moment of panic where he’s not sure what his eyes will do. The medical worker seem to start when he meets Neil’s eyes, but then he just nods at whatever he sees, clearly satisfied, so Neil lets it go.

They win.

In the lockers, the team loudly makes plans to meet up at the diner that recently opened nearby. The other team invites themselves, listening through the showers that are separated with thin walls. Over Andrew kissing him against the lockers, Neil hears Dan’s distinct voice yelling, “And you’re paying!”

Andrew leans back, whispering, “Hear that? You’re paying.”

“Okay,” Neil says, anything to get Andrew to kiss him some more.

Andrew looks at him with amusement in his eyes, but he freezes momentarily when their gazes meet. Only for a millisecond, and then he melts against Neil again, but Neil catches it nonetheless.

“What?” Neil says.

Andrew shakes his head, kisses Neil near the ear. “Nothing. We have to clean up, or else they’ll leave us behind and only give us the check when we catch up with them.”

When they walk up to the diner, the others are already making a ruckus, taking up half the space and yelling incoherent sentences at each other that must make sense in their already tipsy minds. Neil rolls his eyes at them. It’s when he turns to the cashier that Neil realizes he’s got a problem. He can’t see the menu plaques. 

He tries to squint at it, which makes everything go somewhat sharper, but he still can’t read the tiny letters that look like ants to him. This goes on for three minutes, but when he’s up at the counter, the only thing he caught is the picture of what might be burger and fries. The cashier asks what it will be and Neil resolutely looks up at the plaques, pretending he can see anything. Maybe if he pretends, his sight will suddenly miraculously get better.

An arm snakes its way around Neil’s waist, Andrew appearing flush against his side. “Why are you taking so long? Just order the chicken burgers you love so much, you’re holding up the line.”

Stuttering, Neil does just that, thanking the heavens that Andrew didn’t catch his real problem. The others drag them down to the tables they’re occupying, seating Neil and Andrew across from each other. Dan sits next to Neil, and she elbows his side when he sits down and says, “Good game out there, Neil,” and Neil says it back, honestly happy that Dan is his friend first and rival second. 

Turning his head slightly from Dan’s face, Neil sees Matt. A sharp burst of fear goes off in Neil’s chest, looking sharply over at Andrew, but Andrew’s only talking to Kevin, covertly stealing the fries off his plate, no butterflies in sight.

Neil takes a deep breath and excuses himself from the table, guilt gnawing at him because before Dan, before even Andrew, there was Matt, helping him and being his best friend and it’s unfair that he feels such negative feelings at just the sight of him, of what he represents.

Neil meets Matt in the alleyway by the diner. “Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” Matt says. “Your eyesight is getting worse.”

“You caught that, huh?” Neil leans on one of the walls, breathes just to see the white condensation seep out of him and disappear. When Neil was little, he used to think the white clouds were parts of his ghost leaving him through the mouth. Matt’s definitely not a white ghost, for all that he’s not alive. He looks as real as any guy in the diner, wearing a gray hoodie and a pair of jeans a little ripped at the seams, black skin glowing with healthy color and brown eyes shining even brighter. In another life, Matt would be here, the boyfriend at Dan’s arm, fending his fries off Andrew, kicking Kevin’s chair for the fun of it and sharing his earbuds with Neil. Alas.

“Neil,” Matt says. “Why haven’t you ever told Andrew about what you can see?”

“Matt,” Neil says, scrubbing his face, “tell me about Dan.”

“Subtle way to deflect the subject,” Matt acknowledges, but like Dan, Matt is good people, the absolute best, and he lets it go with a crooked smile. “Dan has been seeing this woman, a former friend of hers from way back. It looks like it’s going good. Her name’s Khadra. She seems nice and genuinely attached to Dan, so you know. All good. I hope she stays around.”

Sometimes Neil gets these pangs of momentary guilt, extremely aware that what Matt’s telling him is confidential and private information about one of his closest friends. There’s no excuse, only that Matt’s lonely, doomed to reap souls for 153 years, while the love of his former life was reincarnated. It’s no justification, but.

There’s supposed to be a balance, right? Matt deals with enough of Neil’s crap, it’s only right for Neil to lighten the immense pain that Matt bears, if only marginally. Matt stays with Neil the whole way Neil has to walk from the night club in Columbia till he finds someone willing to drive him back home to the university. In return, Neil relays his condolences to Allison, even though Neil couldn’t care less about the fucker. He does it because Matt was the one who had to reap him and he wants to say sorry to one of Dan’s dearest friends.

Neil and Matt? They had each other’s backs. Why?

“Because we’re friends, Neil,” Matt had said and rolled his eyes fondly. “Duh.”

They’re friends. And Neil couldn’t be more grateful. So maybe part of the reason he gets sad whenever they talk about Dan, aside from the guilt, is that he feels helpless. He can’t do anything about the loneliness behind Matt’s eyes besides patting the wall behind Matt. Matt smiles at him and shakes his head.

“I’m not the one you should be worried about,” he says. “Be a little more selfish. Think a little bit about yourself.”

Neil snorts, and pushes the bangs in front of his eyes aside. “I’m plenty of selfish, Matt. I’m the most egoistic person in this whole damn districts, maybe even this side of the planet. That’s how selfish I am.”¨

They stand in companionable silence for a few minutes, before Neil decides to answer Matt’s earlier question, sighing. “Andrew acts weird around the concept of death, so I just never mentioned it to him. It’s not like it would impact his life in any significant way, I figured. And it has worked fine, right?”

“You’re literally going blind,” Matt says. 

“But he’s alive,” Neil says simply.

Matt smiles and—ding, ding, ding! Neil, you failed again because—it looks sad again, and Neil wants to tell him not to be. He wants to remind him about the way Neil lived before Andrew, about the person he was then; Neil runs, and when he can’t feel his legs anymore, he forces himself to run just that little faster so he can reach his destination a little sooner, wherever that might be. It’s so cliche, and so trite, but Neil thinks that way of living is not living at all, no quest or journey or growth other than following the quench for survival. But when you make the boy who’s made a life out of running stand still, it leaves the boy with nothing. Because he made his whole life out of running from place to place from place, and when you take that away, there’s nothing there, just someone tripping over themselves in the dark. Neil’s already dead. He doesn’t want to feel dead too.

“You love him,” Matt says and it’s not a question.

Neil wants to tell Matt that he doesn’t know any other love than the one his mother showed him, using the same hands that held him close to her and softly brushed his hair out of his eyes to also bruise intricate galaxies on his skin and hold him down by his neck to shave his hair. If that’s love, then no, Neil doesn’t love Andrew and Andrew certainly doesn’t love Neil. Andrew touches Neil with the tip of his fingertips, almost reverently, as if he’s afraid Neil will crack under the softest point of contact. He brushes Neil’s hair from his eyes to look at them closer and kisses Neil’s eyelids when he closes them. 

Once, Neil had closed his eyes as Andrew had one hand around his neck and the other one lying heavy on his shoulder, and that’s telling something. That’s really telling for someone who’s only known love from one person, the same person who told him to never trust anyone, not even her. The things that Andrew makes him want to do. Keeping his eyes closed, Neil had said, “You terrify me.”

He had opened them to see Andrew looking at him with a pained expression on his face.

“I terrify _you_?”

What he and Andrew have is not love the way Neil knows it as, but it is something. It has to be, because fuck _ba-bump_ or whatever, Neil’s heart beats to the sound of Andrew’s name. _An-drew, An-drew, An-drew._

And he always will love his mother for giving him the iron will to survive, even if she had to beat it into him, all but breaking his bones to let them grow stronger. It made him able to push her arm away to stand up. It made him able to force himself to face the cruel world alone instead of closing his eyes to lie down there with her together. But Andrew is his life, he’s the reason for why he’s blood is still thrumming in his veins. He’s the reason for why his blood sings. He’s the reason for why Neil feels alive.

If there’s even a tiny chance that his mother is watching him right now, he hopes she can find in her soul to forgive him.

Because the view’s so nice, seeing Andrew enjoy himself with their friends. Call him a fool for not giving that up, but Neil thinks that giving away that kind of reason would make him a bigger fool.

Neil is figuring it out though, it just hits him when he goes back to the diner and looks at Andrew across the table from him. He’s figuring what his dream is, and what an appropriate time too. Neil’s dream is to see Andrew play exy with unadulterated joy on the court by his side, but he blinks and the white spots don’t disappear. So this might be as good as it gets, but Neil doesn’t particularly mind at this very instant, because Andrew is looking at Neil with soft eyes and softer lips that curl at the tips in what looks more than a shadow of a smile.

He thinks he could probably live an eternity with this image of Andrew etched into his eyelids.

`restarting…; restarting...`

It slowly gets worse. It won’t get better.

Neil gets pulled out of the team two months later, his eyesight so bad that it’s limiting his game play. It’s not so bad that the others catch onto the reason, but it definitely gets noticed that Neil’s not exactly on the top of his game. The journalists have a field day when Coach announces his decision—just a temporary break to recuperate from personal stress—and the press treats it like the end of his “short-lived, but tremendously impactful” career. His teammates gets defensive, throwing barbs at the journalists whenever they get the chance, and even Wymack takes the time to call him up to say not to mind the mindless blabber; _Neil, you will be up and about in no time._

Neil knows that the journalists are correct, but he doesn’t tell anyone, of course. He doesn’t tell Andrew either, but somehow, Neil gets the feeling that Andrew knows.

Andrew is the one who always is by his side whenever Neil goes to go buy coffee, listing the menu aloud as he wonders what he should get. Andrew is the one who catches Neil stubbing his feet and elbows in doorsteps and tables and who makes sure to always be by his side, holding Neil’s hand, when Neil has to walk someplace outside. Andrew is the one who sits with him to watch _Masterchef_ and who describes aloud the expression of the competitors as Gordon Ramsay yells at them, commenting on how ridiculous they look.

Andrew is the first to point out that Neil has gone back to brown eye contacts. He hasn’t, but he isn’t sure how to explain that his eyes are rotting. It’s nice of Andrew to call them brown, because they appear more of a ghastly gray to Neil when he looks at himself in the mirror, the tip of his nose touching the glass.

At this point it’s just a matter of who’ll break down first and give up this game of pretend. 

What’s more, Andrew’s nightmare are getting more frequent. Neil will wake up to him trashing in the bed. Whenever that happens, Neil makes sure to leave the bed and try to wake up Andrew by saying his name from a distance. It’s not his usual nightmares, Andrew tells him on the rooftop, cigarette smoke engulfing his face. He doesn’t tell Neil anything more, and Neil doesn’t feel he has any right to ask of him anything more.

It doesn’t come up in a conversation before one week into Neil’s “vacation”. They just ate at the Korean restaurant a couple of streets down from their—Neil’s— _their_ apartment, and are walking back home. They should’ve taken the car, Neil thinks, because even though it’s just the tail end of october and it’s technically just a ten minute walk, it’s still piss cold outside. Neil’s wearing fingerless gloves because he’s smart like that, but Andrew gives him one of his gloves and holds Neil’s naked hands in his and puts them both in the pocket of his jacket, warming Neil’s whole body just from that point of contact.

Andrew and Neil is walking down the streets like that when the car accident happens. They’re about to cross the street, the light sign showing a green man and the streets mostly empty of cars, when a car comes out of nowhere, speeding way over the limit and still trying to turn. It skids on the frost crystallized on the ground, and the driver’s not able to stop—

There’s something about witnessing car crashes like this. Time slows down, seconds passing by in hours, and everything becomes much more clear in the moments right before the crash itself. The sounds the wheels make against the asphalt, as they turn and turn and turn. The way every pedestrian inhales at the same times. The swarm of purple flying after the car, followed by the pungent smell of gasoline that’s almost dizzying to smell in this clear, cold air.

The way Andrew squeezes Neil’s hand, choking on a yell.

It brings Neil back to reality and with a jolt, he grabs Andrew’s shoulder and turns them around, away from the sight. But it’s too late. Andrew has already seen the wreckage.

He’s not shaking of fear, Neil soon realizes. No, Andrew’s _pissed_.

He doesn’t know how they manage to get back to the apartment, but as soon as they do, Andrew finds his pack of cigarettes and begins to smoke right there, in the kitchen. They have a rule that Andrew doesn’t smoke inside, but Neil doesn’t have the heart to forbid him this at the moment, not with how much Andrew’s hands are shaking, barely able to light the tip.

Andrew goes through the rest of the cigarettes—not finishing a single one of them fully—until the pack is empty before he says anything. When he does, it’s nothing that Neil anticipated.

“The fucker,” Andrew says. “If he wanted to kill himself, he could’ve at least have done us all the courtesy of doing it in a less public place.”

“Don’t talk like you know him,” Neil says.

Andrew laughs, and it’s the ugliest sound Neil has ever heard, self-deprecating and cutting. “Why?”

“Because you didn’t know him,” Neil says. Because it sounds like you’re talking about yourself, Neil doesn’t say.

Andrew goes to sleep at the guest room that night.

` 31 536 hours; 33 767 hours `

On his way on trying to find Aaron to get him to grow a pair and set Andrew loose from whatever promise bound them together, Neil finds himself in the middle of a lecture on cell biology. Nicky had pointed him the way, and Neil remembers mentions of Aaron being pre-med when he finds a familiar blonde head several rows ahead of him, bowed and clearly focused as he attentively takes notes. Neil sits in the back, fully intending to tone out and wait till the lecture is finished, but the lecturer’s voice catches his attention with his words.

“Fifty percent of your DNA in the nucleus,” the lecturer says, “is from your biological mother. The other fifty percent is from your biological father. The same DNA resides in each of your cells. So how do we have so many different cells? The cells in our lungs are completely different from the ones making our muscles. The differentiation between cells is done through transcription of the cell, but also by processing the resulting pre-RNA, controlling which proteins are to be made in the cell and ultimately deciding what kind of cell it is to become.”

“23 chromosomes from our mother, 23 from our father. That’s why people say we’re fifty percent of our mothers and fifty percent of our fathers. It’s an even number, if we don’t have any genetic disorders, that is.”

“But, if we’re to be exact, we’re not actually fifty percent of each of our parents. Because the DNA in the nucleus is not the only DNA we have in our cells. One of its organelles, the mitochondria, has its own separate set of DNA and that fact is used to support the endosymbiotic theory. The DNA in the mitochondria is, however, not a combination of genetics from both our parents, but come from the same source; our mothers.”

“So, biologically speaking,” the lecturer says, “we’re all more like our mothers than our fathers.”

Sometimes, when his mother and him didn’t have any other choice but to break out the sleeping bag and huddle close, she would stroke his hair and whisper his name. Not Nathaniel, but Neil. Nathan-niel. Neil. Tearing away his father and making sure it was only herself left in her son. Neil. Cut away your losses. Neil. Flee away from the past before it could grab you. Neil. Make a whole of a half. Neil. Neil. Neil. 

The funny thing is, she’d yell at him, if she knew she used this name publicly as his now.

Whispering in his ear, she created a clear dichotomy. If his father was the devil, his mother was an angel. If his father was everything bad, then his mother was everything good. It’s so simple, even a nine year old can understand that concept. But Neil has another memory, a memory of himself lying on a mattress in front of a TV, one of those small black boxes with a tiny screen that usually showed more static snow than moving pictures. But in this memory, the TV works for once, showing a cartoon of a cat and mouse, and Neil lies there, on his stomach, blinking sleepily at the screen and laughing along with the gags and jokes, when suddenly, a dark shadow falls over him. Looking up at the figure looming above him, Neil only has time to blink before he has to roll away to dodge the feet that was about to stomp him. The feet still make impact, kicking at his side with heavy black boots, crushing and bruising soft flesh. Neil can’t remember the pain, only the immense fear. He rolls and rolls and rolls off the mattress and away and under the table, and still the feet stomps after him.

He used to think it was his father, but now he can’t help but recall how his mother liked to wear black boots.

Neil inhales deeply and let’s the breath slowly escape him. In front of him, Aaron sits ramrod straight in his seat, not moving to take notes or otherwise, for the rest of the lecture. 

It’s not until later, when he confronts Aaron about the promise, about why Andrew and Aaron are at odds with each other, that Neil understands.

It’s even much, much later that Neil finds out that Andrew was the one in the driving seat of that crash.

`processing`...`; processing...`

The game of pretend ends not a week later. At the morning of Andrew’s birthday, Neil fumbles his way to the bathroom and promptly slips, dragging the cabinet down with him in his frantic reach for something to hold onto. Andrew runs to the bathroom and when he sees him, he only says, “Enough. Enough already. We’re going to the ER.”

The silence in the car on the way there is tense. Neil wants to break it, say he’s sorry, but not really. Sorry that he didn’t tell Andrew sooner. Not sorry that it came to it. It probably would’ve not have gone by Andrew very well, so Neil acts smart and shuts his mouth.

It seems like Neil’s ankle is sprained. His eyes? Totally fine.

“I don’t understand,” the doctor says, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “All the tests show that you by all means should have excellent sight.”

On the way back home, Andrew says, “We both know your eyes aren’t working properly. Cut the bullshit and explain, before I decide I’ll cut you instead.”

Neil blinks and looks at Andrew beside him. He can’t see him properly, only the blurred outline of his profile as he’s looking out the front window, focus on the road.

“I’m sorry,” Neil says.

Andrew hits the steering wheel with such force behind it looks like the intent is to break it. The car honks and Neil starts. “Wrong answer. Not good enough, Neil. I want an explanation.”

Neil closes his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Andrew says through gritted teeth, voice low and guttural. “I don’t want apologizes. I don’t want excuses. I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”

Neil bites his lips. “I,” he begins, and then shakes his head.

There’s silence for a good while after that, and Neil thinks he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe until he feels shake fingers touch his.

“Hold my hand,” Andrew says, and Neil does. He holds Andrew’s shaking hand between both of his, until the shaking recedes and the tension bleeds out of his fingers.

“See?” Andrew says. “Don’t you remember what I told you that day of my accident? In the tunnel, before the game?”

“I remember,” Neil says.

“How do you think you can achieve that when I’m worried out of my mind about you? You’re so stupid it hurts me sometimes. Me knowing you’re thinking about yourself and getting help for yourself would help a lot. Can you promise me that? Can you promise me to think about yourself?”

Neil takes Andrew’s hand up to his lips and smiles against his knuckles. “Always,” Neil says.

Neil can sense Andrew turning towards him and looking at him, and Neil’s about to tell him off and say he should focus on the road, when everything, literally, goes sideways—

` 0,56 hours; ~~dead~~ `

“Wait,” Neil says. “Hold on.”

Andrew turns toward Neil, and Neil is not a poet, no wordsmith, not good with pretty words for all that his friends call him a drama king and instigator and whatever that might imply, but in that moment, when Andrew turns to look at Neil in the tunnel, he wants to write a hundred letters to describe the way the light from the court behind him caresses his hair and cheeks, softening his edges, while the thundering applause and cheers from the audience wraps around them until nothing else is audible, until there’s no other person in the whole world again, because Neil swears he can feel himself falling in love again. His breath hitches at the realization, but also for how beautiful Andrew looks, for how he stopped and turned around. For how he always had. Waited for Neil, that is. Because no one else had. No one else had. 

For all that Andrew appeared uncaring, Neil knows that Andrew cares deeply, so deeply that a well appeared in his heart, a well that’s just a black hole now, for how often it collapsed on itself, caring, caring so much. Who had cared for Andrew?

“I,” Neil begins, but the words had already gone before he could catch them.

Quirking an eyebrow, Andrew drawls, “Cat got your tongue? Out with it, chop chop, your fans are waiting.”

“Give me your helmet,” Neil says instead, holding out his hand.

“Why,” Andrew says even while he hands his helmet to Neil.

Neil steps closer, lifting the helmet. “I wanted to put it on you. Can I?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew says. “Can you?”

“I’m asking you,” Neil says, _to let me take care of you_.

Andrew frowns, confusion marring his features, but there’s also a little uncertainty in the way he licks his lips, the way his gaze slides away and his eyes narrow into something a little tight and painful around the corner. He murmurs something under his breath that Neil can’t hear, but he raises both his voice and head to say, “Sure.”

Nodding, Neil closes the distance and threads the helmet carefully on Andrew’s head. He’s hyper aware of Andrew’s eyes on him, making his skin tingle, and when he dares to glance quickly up, he sees Andrew looking back with an intense gaze behind half-lidded eyes. Neil hurries to look back down to the straps, pretending he doesn’t see Andrew licking his lips or that he notices the sheen of wetness on his bottom lip or that he feels warmth rushing to his face. 

“Jesus,” he says instead of kissing Andrew’s lips and lids and jaw. He grabs the straps of the helmet instead of cradling Andrew’s face between his hands, and starts immediately to tighten them. “Jesus, have these always been so loose? This is your helmet, right? What the fuck, Andrew, this thing is so loose, a breeze from the right direction could blow it off your head.”

“I hate how the thing digs into my neck,” Andrew says. “Besides, it’s worked so far.”

“It’s worked so far,” Neil repeats incredulously. “What the fuck, _no_. I swear, I’ll stick a person on you to check your goddamn helmet for every game and practice from now on, fuck.”

“Careful,” Andrew says. “A vice captain can’t show blatant favoritism like that.”

“I know we never said, but pretty sure there’s no one who doesn’t know we’re dating,” Neil says, still fickling with the straps and cage, making sure every nook and screw is secured, because his lungs have somehow been convinced to believe that the air Andrew breathes is sweeter than oxygen, and he still wants the excuse to be close.

Andrew hums. “They must be wondering, the gossips.”

And Neil’s known for his timing, both for the brilliant moments and the disastrous moments, but mostly for the bad kind because those are usually the ones that make hell for his teammates and everyone around him. He’s still looking at Andrew’s chin, when the thought of Andrew’s loose helmet lodges itself in his mind, and like a mind map, several other thoughts appear almost simultaneously. Like, how Neil hasn’t noticed how loose Andrew’s helmet have been all this time, both as a vice captain and a boyfriend. Like, how Neil can’t remember the last time he had done something like this for Andrew, just a small and inconsequential thing to show he cared. Like, how being able to take care of Andrew is a privilege he might’ve not always shown the weight that privilege should hold. Like, how Neil wondered sometimes too, about why they were together. 

“Why,” Neil says, “why me?”

“Why you, what?” Andrew says. 

“I mean,” Neil says, closing his eyes and pretending that the deep breath he takes isn’t ripping his throat, that what he’s about to say might change Andrew’s perception of him, of them, might make him realize that Neil doesn’t deserve him at all and leave him, and Neil wouldn’t blame him. Wouldn’t blame him at all. “I mean, me, everything. I mean, the scars,” and here he gestures at his face, “the terror, the violence, the death,” and here he tilts his head towards the court, where Riko’s brother stands and continues to play with them every game, “and the silences, the fights, the fact that I never remember to buy milk when I get groceries, or the fact that I never remember to put gas into the car after a ride, or that even when we go out on dates, we’re never left alone, because we’re both guys who play in the same exy team.” Neil shrugs, helpless and hopeless. “I mean, me?”

After a pause, when it’s clear that Neil is waiting for Andrew to talk, Andrew says, “Are you done? I think the pre-game practice is nearing its end and I can feel Day glaring daggers at my back.”

“Since when were you concerned of what Kevin thinks of you?” Neil frowns, momentarily distracted.

“Since you started spewing well known shit about how big of a mess you are,” Andrew says, “fishing for, what, a love confession right before one of our biggest games of the year so far.”

At the word ‘love’, Neil’s heart hammers so hard, he can feel pain against his ribcage, can feel the rhythm of his pulse down to the tip of his toes. “Hey,” he says weakly, “I’m serious.”

Taking a step forward and shrinking the space between them, Andrew undoes his gloves and says, “I’m going to take your hand right now.” Neil nods at the unasked question, looks down to see Andrew’s warm hand slide up his fingers and hand to clasp around his right hand wrist, making the bracelet—the bracelet Andrew made and gave to him with steady hands—dig into his skin.

“Listen well, Josten,” Andrew says, his voice pitched low because they can afford it with how close they’re standing, nearly chest to chest, Andrew’s head tilted to the side so he’s almost talking directly into Neil’s ear. The position and helmet obscures Andrew’s face from Neil, but he concentrates at the sound of his deep voice. “Are you listening? Because I was going to say this anyway, but your impeccable timing brought us here sooner, so listen well.”

Andrew moves back again, and even through the several thick layers of uniform made to protect the goalkeeper from tackles and the fastest balls made in a moving sport, Neil can see him take a deep breath, before looking him in the eyes through the helmet’s cage. The cheers have become louder and in the background, someone is yelling their names and to move their asses to the court. But Neil has only eyes for Andrew, which is fortunate, because it’s partially only through lip reading that Neil catches Andrew’s words at all.

“You bring me peace, Neil.”

Something in Neil cuts away so sudden, it’s almost violent. He only realizes how much tension he held when his shoulders slump, his knees feeling a little weak with the rush of emotions. There’s a prodding heat behind his eyes and a growing ball in his throat, and shit, shit, he sees Kevin waving in his peripheral vision, they’re about to play, and he can’t afford to go out there glassy-eyed to one of the toughest teams in their league, but there’s an itch on his tongue to ask one final question.

“Even after everything?” Neil says, raising his voice to be heard through the cheers and yells and the white noise in his head.

Andrew hasn’t let go of Neil’s hand, but he has caught the warning for them to get a move on, and so he’s jogging backwards, forcing Neil to jog after him as he’s still holding Neil’s hand and showing no sign of letting go. It’s fine either way, because there’s no thought in Neil’s head that considers the option not to follow Andrew. At Neil’s question, Andrew tilts his head in a way reminiscent of someone rolling their eyes and yells back, “Oh, what’s that word you throw around so easily all the time? Always?”

The sun blinds Neil as soon as they’re out the tunnel, and the cheers are now deafening, but Neil can still hear the smile in Andrew’s voice.

“Even after always.”

` ERROR ERROR ERROR; ERROR ERROR ERROR `

Matt says that the only mistake in Neil’s life is that he died. Neil smiles sardonically and says that can’t be true, because God bringing him back was a mistake too. The truth is, Neil knows it’s only a matter of perspective, of how you choose to look at the picture, of how you pose the camera, but most importantly, of what you think the subject is.

It was a mistake to not inform his mother of a strange man in a dark suit in the parking lot of the gas station. It was a mistake for him to die. It was a mistake for him to be brought back. It was a mistake to take Wymack’s outstretched hand. It was a mistake to look at Andrew. It was a mistake to make Andrew believe that he could find some semblance of happiness with Neil. Neil looks at his mistakes and thinks he can see why he got so good at running. Because staying, clinging, meant facing his mistakes, and it was just better to cut your losses, your hair, and start anew another place. 

And the fact is, his mother raised him to be a coward.

But looking at the whole picture, if Neil considers what Matt said, then counting the gravest mistakes in his life would go a little like this:

The first mistake is Neil taking a bullet through the heart. The second mistake is for him to wake up again, his mother’s corpse laying over him. And the third mistake? The third mistake is Neil not cutting his losses for the first time.

This is the third mistake.

` r e c a l c u l a t i n g; r e c a l c u l a t i n g `

Neil sees the dashboard rushing towards him, and in the next moment, he blinks and Matt’s face fills his vision. Fear immediately grips his heart, but this time it’s accompanied by a cloud of anger in his head and a heavy dose of desperation clenching his hands. 

“No,” Neil says. “No, you promised, Matt. You promised, and you swore to me. You said you can’t lie, remember? You can’t take Andrew, you can’t, you _promised_.”

“Neil,” Matt says and leans back. “I didn’t lie.”

“Then,” Neil says and bares his teeth, “explain _that_.” He points to the big heavy scythe held in Matt’s hands, the blade glittering from the traffic lights and colorful TV ads on the streets and looming threateningly above Matt’s head.

Matt follows Neil’s finger. He keeps his gaze fixed on the scythe as he says, “I didn’t lie, Neil. I truly didn’t know at the time, but even if I did, none of it would have been lies.” Matt audibly swallows, and when he speak up again, his voice is barely a shaking whisper. “There was a mistake.”

He looks slowly down at the scythe, clenching his hands around the handle. Neil’s stomach falls, a sense of terrible premonition on his shoulders.

“It was supposed to be like this,” Matt says. “Andrew was meant to die on the court, his head cracking on impact. You were meant to mourn him, to isolate yourself from the others as you slowly broke down. A week would pass, then two, then a month, then two months and before you knew it, you would look out the window to the see all the naked threes, realizing a season has passed you by. And then, three months after Andrew’s death, you were supposed to buy flowers and visit his grave. You wanted to do it alone, so you take his keys and drive his car.”

Looking slowly up again, Matt locks gazes with Neil, and Neil notices the tears streaking Matt’s face. Matt says, “You were supposed to drive in the rain, not caring about the slippery roads,” and then everything else comes rushing at Neil. 

He notices the rain first, how it’s no longer a light drizzle but pouring cats and dogs. Then he realizes that he’s not looking at Matt right, that Matt and the whole street behind him is over his head and the sky is under his feet. The feeling in his body comes back slowly, then all at once, and he screams at the immense pain everywhere, the _agony_ , and through the throbbing pain, he registers how the seat belt cutting into his shoulder, neck and chest is the only thing holding him up against gravity that pulls him downwards. The cold wind hits his face through the shattered windshield and windows, and the sharp sound of sirens cuts against the screams and cries from the streets. He forces his eyes to open, and through his watering eyes, he sees them, clear as day on the night sky.

Thousands of dark purple butterflies.

“No,” Neil whispers, even as the pain seeps out of his body and his limbs go numb. Neil would say it was because of the cold, but he knows better. He knows exactly what is happening before him, and a litany of no’s leaves his mouth, as if he can slow the process down if he denies it enough.

Matt crouches down, saying, “You were supposed to both die with an interval of three months from each other.”

“And now?” Neil says. “Matt, what now?”

“Neil,” Matt says, still crying silent tears that drip down his chin. “Neil, you gave him nearly eighty new years.”

“You’re not here for Andrew,” Neil says. 

“I’m not here for Andrew,” Matt confirms.

“Liar,” Neil says, trying to kick his legs out, to get out of the car, but he can’t feel anything under his stomach anymore. “You’re such a lying liar, Matt, just tell me you’re lying. I’m sorry I got angry at the possibility that you were lying, but I’d be so happy, Matt, I’d be the happiest man on earth if you told me you’re lying to me right now. I can’t—I can’t go now, Matt, not now, not like _this._ Not when Andrew was the one driving. Just, Matt, Matt, tell me you’re lying.”

Matt opens his mouth to answer, but he’s cut out by a groan of pain, and then a dazed voice saying, “Neil? Are you okay? Neil. Neil, Neil, Neil. You have to look at me, Neil.”

If Neil didn’t know Andrew better, he could’ve sworn he was begging as his voice gets more frantic and frenzied. Each repeat of Neil’s name is hacking away at him, causing him more pain than the pain he felt earlier. Someone sobs, a gut wrenching sound, and it’s not before then that Neil feels how wet his face is. He touches his face to wipe away what he expects are tears, but his hand comes away red.

“Neil, you promised. Look at me, Neil, look. You promised me you’d stay. Neil? Neil, Neil, Neil, look.”

“Don’t,” Matt says, raising to stand at his full height. He raises his scythe, saying, “Neil, don’t look at him.”

But a scythe is long, and the moment it takes Matt to swing it all the way around to hit Neil is an eternity too long. Car crashes, Neil knows, is hard to look away from, and what’s more, this is Neil’s last look at Andrew.

Neil turns.

` 683 539 hours; dead `

**Author's Note:**

> i originally posted this on ao3 in oct/nov 2017 under the name Fandine. thank you for reading, i appreciate any thoughts or comments. take care of yourself and loved ones during these trying times.


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